450573
an and ChenowethAmerican Sociological Review
2012
ASRXXX10.1177/0003122412450573Dug
Moving Beyond
Deterrence: The Effectiveness
of Raising the Expected Utility
of Abstaining from Terrorism in
Israel
American Sociological Review
77(4) 597­–624
© American Sociological
Association 2012
DOI: 10.1177/0003122412450573
http://asr.sagepub.com
Laura Dugana and Erica Chenowethb
Abstract
Rational choice approaches to reducing terrorist violence would suggest raising the costs of
terrorism through punishment, thereby reducing the overall expected utility of terrorism. In
this article, we argue that states should also consider raising the expected utility of abstaining
from terrorism through rewards. We test effects of repressive (or punishing) and conciliatory
(or rewarding) actions on terrorist behavior using the newly developed GATE-Israel dataset,
which identifies events by Israeli state actors toward Palestinian targets on a full range of
counterterrorism tactics and policies from 1987 to 2004. Results show that repressive actions
are either unrelated to terror or related to subsequent increases in terror, and conciliatory
actions are generally related to decreases in terror, depending on the tactical period. Findings
also reveal the importance of understanding the role of terrorists’ constituencies for reducing
violence.
Keywords
conciliation, counterterrorism, deterrence, expected utility, Israel, Palestine, rational choice
theory, terrorism
Rational choice approaches have long suggested that reducing unwanted behavior
requires raising the costs (or perceived costs)
of a behavior through the threat of punishment—a process commonly referred to as
deterrence. In the eighteenth century, Beccaria ([1764] 1983) argued that the state should
punish law-breakers just enough so that the
burdens of punishment outweigh any pleasure
derived from perpetrating the crime—an idea
that directly informs U.S. criminal law, military strategy, and a host of other social policy
domains. Scholars have since applied the
notion of deterrence to a range of areas,
including nuclear doctrine (Brodie 1959), as
well as a broad range of offending behaviors
(Matsueda, Kreager, and Huizinga 2006;
Nagin 1998; Paternoster 1987), including terrorist violence (LaFree, Dugan, and Korte
2009). The clear appeal of deterrence theory
is its parsimony, as well as the fact that punishment can be imposed with relative ease.
a
University of Maryland
University of Denver
b
Corresponding Author:
Laura Dugan, University of Maryland,
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice,
2220 LeFrak Hall, College Park, MD 20742
E-mail: [email protected]
598
All the theory requires is that punishment be
calibrated in such a way that specific behaviors are no longer appealing.
Despite the popularity of deterrence, two
important problems remain. First, empirically,
unwanted behaviors continue—and indeed
often increase—despite the threat of punishment. Second, theoretically, implications of
rational choice theory are broader than simply
deterring unwanted behavior through punishment. As Becker (1968) demonstrates, actors
choose whether to break the law by comparing
the expected utility of committing a crime with
the expected utility of making a different
choice. Deterrence-based policies are naturally
directed toward lowering the anticipated gains
of illegal behavior by raising its costs, but relatively little attention has been given to raising
the anticipated value of legal behaviors relative to illegal ones.
In this article, we argue that raising the
expected utility of abstaining from an unwanted
behavior may be an effective policy choice in
certain circumstances. To support this argument, we use a newly developed dataset that
documents specific terrorism-relevant actions
by the Israeli government directed toward substate actors in the Palestinian Territories to
assess effects of repressive actions (which
raise the costs of terrorism) and conciliatory
actions (which raise the benefits of abstaining
from terrorism) on terrorist activity during
three decision regimes: the First Intifada, the
Oslo Lull, and the Second Intifada (Brym and
Andersen 2011; Kuperman 2007; Rasler 2000).
We find that during the First Intifada and
the Oslo Lull, small numbers of conciliatory
tactics led to increases in terror; however, as
Israel initiated more conciliatory actions, the
number of terrorist attacks declined. During
the Second Intifada, conciliatory tactics had a
much stronger and linear effect on reducing
Palestinian terrorist attacks. Furthermore,
despite the conventional confidence in deterrence approaches, repressive actions have
never led to decreases in terrorism and have
sometimes led to increases in terrorism. Our
study is the first to show empirically that
whereas solely repressive tactics tend to
backfire, conciliation toward Palestinians can
American Sociological Review 77(4)
yield lower levels of subsequent Palestinian
violence, even when the primary targets are
religiously inspired terrorist groups, emphasizing an important—yet understudied—
dimension of rational choice approaches. In
summary, Israeli policymakers should consider conciliatory tactics as potentially viable
in reducing terrorism and disempowering
extremists within the Palestinian Territories.
Scholars should study more carefully the conditions under which conciliatory policies may
be effective in reducing terrorism.
RATIONal choice
Predictions of Terrorist
Behavior
Any application of rational choice theory
assumes that actors make decisions designed
to optimize their own well-being while minimizing costs (Bentham [1781] 1996). We
argue that terrorist actors, despite the gruesome nature of their crimes, can be considered rational actors (Crenshaw 2001; LaFree
and Ackerman 2009). Kruglanski and colleagues (2009) characterize the reasons for
violent participation as a quest for personal
significance; other scholars highlight the
common terrorist goal of recognition and
fame (Hamm 2004). These views suggest that
terrorists are generally less concerned about
being punished and more concerned about
their role in ensuring the well-being of their
movement and its constituency, so strategies
that successfully deter common criminals
may be ineffective for terrorists (for an example of this difference among airline hijackers,
see Dugan, LaFree, and Piquero 2005).
Therefore, we deliberately adjust the costs
and benefits of perpetrating terrorist attacks
so that they also relate to the larger goals of
the terrorist movement as well as to any personal fame (LaFree and Dugan 2004).
We illustrate this point by examining the
equation for the expected utility of perpetrating a terror attack (Equation 1). Here, the
expected utility for person i, [E(uterror)i], is a
function of the perceived costs of and benefits
from perpetrating the act:
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E(uterror)i = pi U( yi – Fi) + (1 – pi) U( yi), (1)
where p is the perceived probability of being
punished, y is the anticipated benefits of perpetrating the act, and F is the perceived penalty for the act.1 Thus, the decision to
perpetrate an act of terror for person i depends
on whether E(uterror)i > E(unonterror)i. The value
of this expectation varies across individuals
depending on their unique preferences, propensities toward violence, and other individual differences (see Tibbetts and Gibson
2002). For terrorists, y typically advances the
movement’s progress toward its larger goals
and improves their personal status, so any
penalty directed toward individual i has less
of an impact on the overall expected utility.
This disproportion between y and F is well
illustrated when we consider suicide attacks.
Even when F is death, the expected utility is
clearly higher for some individuals than are
any alternative actions (see Hafez 2006). It
naturally follows that to deter terrorism, F
must affect more than just the individual.
For this reason, and because policy is
designed to influence the population as an
aggregate—not just specific individuals—we
generalize Equation 1 by averaging across all
individuals to produce Equation 2:
E(uterror) = p U( y – F) + (1 – p) U( y)
(2)
This naturally leads to a policy strategy
designed to reduce the overall expected utility
of terror by increasing the certainty (p) and
severity (F ) of punishment. Rational choice
theory predicts that when states are able to
raise the cost of perpetrating terror high
enough so that the overall expected utility of
terror is lower than that for abstaining from
terror, rates of terrorism will drop.
Raising the Costs of Perpetrating
Terror
Many studies have evaluated the effectiveness of raising the costs of illicit behavior,
such as drunk driving and sexual assault
(Nagin 1998; Nagin and Paternoster 1993;
Paternoster 1987). Research consistently
finds that fewer people report intentions to
engage in illicit behaviors when they perceive
a high risk of detection (Nagin 1998), illuminating the importance of the perceived certainty of being punished (or pi from Equation
1). Evidence supporting the importance of
severity (or Fi from Equation 1) is mixed
(Nagin 1998; Paternoster 1987). Nagin (1998)
cautions, however, that empirical support for
deterrence based only on individual-level
perception studies is insufficient to conclude
that policies can deter crime—other than perhaps policies designed to alter perceptions.
Instead, because policies are designed to
change the behavior of aggregate groups of
people, informative research should also be
conducted at the aggregate.
Aggregate studies of deterrence often take
the form of interrupted time-series analyses
that estimate the impact of a specific intervention on crime, or ecological studies that assess
the natural variation between sanction levels
and crime rates (Nagin 1998). The appeal of
interrupted time-series analysis is that it allows
researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of
specific types of interventions or policies,
such as stricter laws or police crackdowns, on
the particular behaviors these policies are trying to affect (Goldkamp and Vilcica 2008;
Ross 1982; Sherman 1990). Efforts to reduce
terrorist behavior include terrorist apprehension and extended prison sentencing (Landes
1978), passage of anti-terrorism laws (Enders
and Sandler 1993), assassination (Byman
2006; Hafez and Hatfield 2006; Jaeger and
Paserman 2008; Maoz 2007; Plaw 2008;
Zussman and Zussman 2006), curfews and
containment strategies (LaFree et al. 2009;
Maoz 2007), deportation (Maoz 2007), home
demolitions (Benmelech, Berrebi, and Klor
2010), violent repression and military retaliation (Brophy-Baermann and Conybeare 1994;
Brym and Araj 2006; Enders and Sandler
1993; LaFree et al. 2009; Maoz 2007; Testas
2004), and indiscriminate repression (Lyall
2009). Some scholars have also examined
effects of containment policies, such as installation of metal detectors (Cauley and Im 1988;
Dugan et al. 2005; Enders and Sandler 1993;
Landes 1978).
600
The second category of aggregate research
includes ecological studies that examine the
natural variation between intervention levels
and illegal behavior to more clearly identify a
causal link (Nagin 1998). This methodology
measures interventions continuously rather
than by a single shift in a discrete value before
and after its implementation. Continuous
measures are far superior because they portray
a more accurate measure of authorities’ level
of effort, such as increases in the prison population or the number of police on the street
(Levitt 1996, 1997). Ecological studies must
be methodologically sophisticated in order to
identify any causal relationship between sanctions and crime and avoid issues of reverse
causality (e.g., more police are hired in
response to increases in crime [Nagin 1998]).
Although studies have examined effects of
repression on protest (Della Porta 1995; Khawaja 1994; Koopmans 1993; Lichbach 1987;
Moore 1998) and effects of annual human
rights violations on subsequent terrorist attacks
(Piazza and Walsh 2009), no studies to date
have examined both repressive and conciliatory tactics and their effects on terrorism.2
Until now, the only information available on
state actions describes discrete interventions.
These data are usually gleaned from case studies or well-publicized media reports (e.g., the
killing of Osama Bin Laden), yielding data that
are ideal for models of interrupted time series
but not for ecological studies.
Ours is thus the first published ecological
study, of which we are aware, that estimates
the effects of aggregate measures of state
repression and conciliation on terrorism.
Before we continue, we consider two important components of deterrence: the nature of
the targets and the possibility of backlash.
Targets of deterrence (or repression).
Deterrence is indiscriminate when it targets
individuals who have not yet broken the law
(general deterrence) and discriminate when it
targets known offenders (specific deterrence)
(Andenaes 1971; Gibbs 1975). For example,
the British government behaved discriminately when it treated jailed, suspected Irish
American Sociological Review 77(4)
Republican Army (IRA) terrorists as criminals rather than political prisoners (LaFree et
al. 2009). In contrast, Britain behaved indiscriminately when it imposed a 36-hour
military curfew in Northern Ireland and
searched all homes for evidence of IRA membership and weaponry (LaFree et al. 2009).
We expect discriminate and indiscriminate
repression to have different effects on the
expected utility of terrorism (E[uterror] in
Equation 2) because indiscriminate repression affects the larger constituency, on whose
interests terrorists generally base their goals.
In other words, indiscriminate repression
likely raises the costs of terrorism much
higher than any penalty directed toward a
specific offender. For instance, Lyall (2009)
finds that indiscriminate violent repression
reduced the number of insurgent attacks in
Chechnya over a three-month period by about
24 percent.
Possible backlash. Despite the popularity of deterrence theories, research shows that
punishment sometimes fails to deter and can
even lead to more crime. For example, label
theorists argue that when states impose punishment, offenders will begin to identify more
thoroughly with their role as law-breakers and
will then fortify their criminal (or terrorist)
lifestyles (Becker 1963; Farrington 1977;
Schwartz and Skolnick 1962). Other scholars
claim that when punishment compromises the
perceived legitimacy of the punisher, it could
elicit acts of defiance (Sherman 1993; Tyler
2006). Indiscriminate repression, often
viewed as illegitimate, may lead to defiance
and increased violence. For instance, although
Benmelech and colleagues (2010) find that
home demolitions that targeted suicide terrorists’ families reduced subsequent Palestinian
suicide attacks during the Second Intifada,
incidental or preventive home demolitions
resulted in a sharp increase in suicide terrorist
attacks.
Other research also finds that state repression exacerbates terrorism, or at least mobilization in general. Peroff and Hewitt’s (1980)
analysis of Northern Ireland indicates that
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between 1968 and 1973, an increased British
troop presence led to more rioting, a finding
that White (1989) corroborates. Similarly,
LaFree and colleagues (2009) find that three
of six British interventions in Northern Ireland led to increases in the risk of Republican
terrorist attacks. Khawaja (1993) finds that
repressive acts by Israel increased the rate of
collective action by Palestinians in the West
Bank. In her study on protest events during
the Iranian Revolution, Rasler (1996) finds
that repression decreased protests in the short
run but increased them in the long run. Testas
(2004) concludes that political repression
may be negatively associated with levels of
terrorism over the short term, but that continued use of repressive policies will eventually
increase terrorist activity. Piazza and Walsh
(2009) corroborate these findings on a global
scale, finding that countries that violate
human rights are more likely to suffer terrorism than are countries that adhere to human
rights—particularly rights that affect physical
safety. Furthermore, Brym and Araj (2006)
and Araj (2008) argue that terrorism emerges
as a response to perceived injustices, such as
government repression, that inspire groups to
mobilize in retaliation.
Another less evident form of backlash
results when offenders substitute one prohibited activity for other illegal acts. For example, despite finding that metal detectors led to
a reduction in airline hijacking, Enders and
Sandler (1993) note a subsequent increase in
hostage taking events. Displacement thus
occurs when the expected utility of committing one type of offense (e.g., hijacking)
drops below the expected utility of a different
offense (e.g., hostage taking) (see Cornish
and Clarke 1987).
One could conclude that policies must be
designed to lower the expected utility of all
reasonable offenses. But this would be prohibitively costly for any state. Instead, we
argue that by focusing efforts only on reducing the expected utility of perpetrating an act
(i.e., E[uterror]), we ignore a potentially important component of the rational choice decision: the utility of abstaining from crime (i.e.,
601
E[unonterror]). Therefore, we next consider how
raising the benefits of abstaining from terror
might reduce subsequent incentives to engage
in terrorism.
Raising the Benefits of Abstaining
from Terror
Equation 3 presents the expected utility of
nonterror, which parallels that for the expected
utility of terror in Equation 2:
E(unonterror) = q U(x + G) + (1 – q) U(x)
(3)
Here, q represents the probability of receiving rewards for abstaining from terrorism, x
represents the value of the current situation
(i.e., the status quo), and G represents the
anticipated rewards of abstaining from terrorism. Aside from the different meanings
attributed to each component of the equation,
the primary difference between Equations 3
and 2 is that G (anticipated rewards) adds to
the value of x in Equation 3, whereas F
(anticipated punishment) detracts from the
value of y in Equation 2. This small contrast
establishes that this is a carrot, rather than a
stick, approach to countering terrorism (Frey
2004).
We can better appreciate the role of U(x +
G) when we take a closer look at x. By representing the status quo, x directly relates to the
grievances that motivate people to commit
acts of terror. For example, if we consider the
case of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), the
nationalist terror organization in the Basque
region of Spain, the status quo (x) is that the
Basque region remains under the sovereignty
of Spain, despite ETA’s intent to establish an
independent reunified Basque state (Clark
1990; Mees 2003). If the Spanish government
offered rewards (G) to ETA or its Basque
constituency (e.g., allowing the Basque people greater freedoms to practice their cultural
traditions), then the utility to ETA and the
Basque people, if Spain were to follow
through on these rewards, would be U(x + G)
(note that q is the probability that Spain actually does follow through on these rewards). In
602
other words, for ETA and the Basque people,
the utility would be a function of the advantages of the rewards in addition to the status
quo (i.e., more freedoms while still under
Spain’s sovereignty). Although these rewards
might not offset their grievances, they would
indeed improve upon the status quo. If the
incentive to behave according to the law is
only the status quo (despite the absence of
punishment that deterrence promises), it may
not prevent rational actors from executing
their illegal prerogatives. Quite simply, by
raising the overall E(unonterror) to be greater
than the E(uterror), a country may be more
likely to experience a drop in terrorism.3
With a few exceptions (Bueno de Mesquita 2005; Kydd and Walter 2002; Lapan
and Sandler1988; Neumann 2007), little
research explicitly assesses effects of conciliation on crime or terrorism. Our interest is not
limited to bargaining with terrorists, but also
includes rewarding nonterrorist behavior. For
example, many programs (e.g., after-school
programs) provide legal alternatives to crime,
which inherently raise the expected utility of
leading crime-free lives (Gottfredson et al.
2004; Newman et al. 2000). Governments
have also attempted to provide alternatives to
terrorist violence. Small movements in this
direction include the establishment of the
Basque Autonomous Community in the postFranco Spanish constitution, which improved
the status quo for the Basque people (Clark
1990). The Turkish army attempted to
improve the status quo for Turkish Kurds in
the mid-1990s by opening educational and
health facilities to the Kurdish population in
the southeast (Cornell 2001). Such actions
raise the expected utility of not engaging in
terrorism, and in these contexts they can be
considered conciliatory rather than repressive. Although these actions fall short of
compensating for the original grievances,
they do reward nonviolent behavior and may
encourage people to refrain from terrorism.
Notice that these efforts target individuals
who have engaged in illegal behaviors as well
as those who were only at risk of such behavior. Just as repressive actions can affect both
American Sociological Review 77(4)
the innocent (general) and known offenders
(specific), conciliatory actions can also target
indiscriminately and discriminately.
Targets of rewards (or conciliation).
Neumann (2007) and others suggest that governments can win the legitimacy battle in part by
approaching terrorists’ constituents with a more
conciliatory tone and set of actions (i.e., indiscriminate conciliation). Through improved
legitimacy, governments offer fair treatment (G
in Equation 3) that could be lost after a terrorist
attack. Yet patience and consistency are required
for conciliatory actions to influence terrorist
behavior, because these actions rely on trust that
can only develop over time.
Many scholars note the importance of
appealing to terrorists’ constituencies. The
Armenian terrorist group ASALA reduced
attacks quickly after losing the support of its
primary constituency, the Armenian diaspora
(Dugan et al. 2008). Terrorist organizations
rely on their constituencies for financial support and as an ongoing recruitment pool.
Indeed, Crenshaw (2001) explains that the key
component for group survival is recruiting and
maintaining a strong membership. To preserve
the loyalty of their constituencies, some terrorist organizations provide social services to
accommodate their needs. Poor constituencies
are especially dependent on terrorist organizations when they are the only service provider
(Flanigan 2010). This strategy has paid off for
Hamas, which developed a network of charitable organizations and services for the Palestinian people and then won a majority of the
Palestinian parliamentary seats in January
2006 (Malka 2007). Hezbollah, which is better
equipped to provide services to Southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut than is
the Lebanese government (Flanigan and
Abdel-Samad 2009), also won electoral victories. Constituencies’ dependence on terrorist
organizations demonstrates the strategic
importance of governments providing competing social support through overt conciliatory
actions. We expect that when governments are
able to improve the status quo (G) for indiscriminate yet relevant populations, terrorist
Dugan and Chenoweth
organizations will have difficulty maintaining
strong membership and will subsequently lose
the capacity to inflict harm.
Conciliatory actions can also be discriminate when they target known offenders.
Deradicalization programs engage convicted
terrorists in religious dialogue to dismantle
the ideological beliefs that justify terrorism.
Concurrently, these programs work closely
with detainees’ families to prepare them to
lead normal, nonviolent lives by providing
financial support to educate the children,
training wives, and helping to reintegrate
detainees into the community (Kruglanski,
Gelfand, and Gunaratna 2010). Similar conciliatory efforts took place in Europe in the
1980s when Spain pardoned imprisoned ETA
members after they publicly renounced the
organization and its use of violence. This
reinsertion policy allowed ETA members to
live normal lives, free from ETA (Mees 2003).
The Italian government offered leniency to
members of the Red Brigades when they provided information that led to the apprehension of other members (Crenshaw 2001;
Cronin 2006). In all of these examples, governments strategically raised the expected
utility of choosing a violence-free life for
known terrorists. Although some of these
efforts show promise (Kruglanski et al. 2010),
we expect conciliatory efforts that target the
broader constituency will be more effective in
reducing terrorism in the long term, because
they will eventually shift popular opinion
away from terrorism, depleting terrorist
groups of public support.
Tactical Regimes and
the Israeli–Palestinian
Conflict Environment
Much can be said about Israel’s relationship
with its contentious neighbors,4 but our primary goal is to explore Israel’s objective of
reducing Palestinian terrorist attacks. The
modern terrorist environment can be traced to
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),
a secular, nationalist, umbrella organization
603
created in 1964 consisting of four main factions: Fatah, the Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP),
and the Palestinian Communist Party (PCP).
A core group of exiled Palestinian Fatah
members, including Yassir Arafat and Khalil
Al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), dominated the PLO.
The group’s leadership looked to other anticolonial movements, such as the Algerian
Liberation Front, for inspiration and adopted
armed struggle as the sole method of confronting the Israeli occupation in the late
1960s (see Article 9 of the Palestinian
National Charter, drafted in 1968) (Kadi
1969). Early examples of armed actions
include multiple airline hijackings, high-profile assassinations, and the famed Munich
Massacre, a high-profile kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich
Olympic Games by the Palestinian group
Black September. However, due to popular
backlash against the latter incident, Palestinian
groups refocused their efforts on armed struggle against Israel within Israel itself.
We now turn our focus to the three time
periods under inquiry. Scholars typically
describe the First Intifada, the Oslo Lull, and
the Second Intifada as distinct periods in
which the Israeli government adopted fairly
uniform approaches to managing the terror
environment (Brym and Andersen 2011;
Kuperman 2007; Rasler 2000). Previous studies have sought to explain the causes of these
regimes, whereas we are more interested in
the effects of Israeli policies during these
periods. We note that, importantly, different
terrorist groups predominated during each of
the distinct regimes. Moreover, despite adoption of particular regimes, we observe a mix
of conciliatory and repressive tactics during
each of these periods, demonstrating that the
tactical regimes were not as uniform as is
often suggested.
The First Intifada (1987 to 1993)
Although the PLO endorsed and pursued
violent methods of resistance against Israeli
604
occupation, the first Palestinian Intifada that
began in December 1987 was initially a nonviolent popular uprising that erupted in a Gaza
refugee camp and spread throughout the Gaza
Strip and the West Bank (King 2007). The
uprising succumbed to factional divisions and
violence by mid-1990 (Pearlman 2008/2009).
Although secular Palestinian nationalists dominated the campaign and the consequent Oslo
Accords, two offshoots of the Muslim
Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad and the Islamic
Resistance Movement (Hamas), emerged as
important players in the latter part of the First
Intifada. These two religious groups aspired to
create an Islamic Palestine governed by sharia
law and refused to recognize Israel as a legitimate state (Brym and Andersen 2011; Kydd
and Walter 2002). The coexistence of multiple
Palestinian groups undermined the unity of
Palestinian resistance during the First Intifada,
and by spring 1990, Palestinians were killing
more fellow Palestinians than Israeli soldiers
were (Pearlman 2008/2009; Rigby 1991).
Nevertheless, popular opinion in Israel
began to turn against Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian territories, and in October 1991,
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met for
bilateral talks at the Madrid Conference. After
more than eight months of talks, key issues—
such as the status of the Jewish settlements
inside the Palestinian Territories—remained
unresolved. But in 1993, Israeli and PLO
officials began to meet in secret in Oslo, Norway, paving the way for a series of agreements known as the Oslo Accords.
The Oslo Lull (1993 to 2000)
As part of the Oslo Accords, negotiators established the Palestinian Authority (PA), a semiindependent governing body that assumed
limited control over parts of Gaza and the West
Bank. In return, Arafat and the Palestinian leadership agreed to recognize Israel’s territory
within the 1967 borders. Brym and Andersen
(2011) write that a new decision regime began
to dominate Israel at this point: a regime that
privileged political solutions over military ones
with regard to the Palestinian Territories, and
American Sociological Review 77(4)
that turned the focus to defending against threats
from regional rivals, such as Iran.
Commentators often point out that neither
side has lived up to its Oslo obligations (Marshall 2009). Israeli settlements continued to
expand throughout the 1990s, and the PA
failed to maintain security in the Palestinian
Territories, mismanaged economic affairs,
and engaged in widespread corruption. Palestinian extremist groups—particularly Hamas
and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)—continued to launch sporadic violent attacks
against Israeli civilians after the Oslo Accords
were signed, and Jewish extremists carried
out violence against Palestinian civilians as
well. Yet Israel responded to these incidents
with considerable restraint until the Second
Intifada began (Brym and Andersen 2011).
The Second Intifada (2000 to 2004)5
In September 2000, tensions erupted when
then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon visited
the Temple Mount. Viewed as an affront to
Islamic faith and a dishonor to Palestinian
traditions, Palestinian extremist groups initiated a sustained violent campaign that became
known as the Second Intifada, also known as
the al-Aqsa Intifada (Beitler 2004). In contrast to the First Intifada, the Second Intifada
was primarily violent.
Religious groups (Hamas and PIJ) carried
out the majority of terrorist attacks during this
period, which became distinctive for the suicide bombing campaigns perpetrated against
Israeli civilians and occupation forces. From
2000 to 2005, suicide bombing was the
favored tactic of Islamist Palestinian groups
such as Hamas and PIJ. Secular groups such
as the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and the
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a collection of
Fatah-affiliated cells, deployed this tactic as
well (Bloom 2004; Hafez 2006), but not to
the same extent as religious groups.
Israel responded by intensifying occupation
of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, initiating programs such as bulldozing suicide bombers’
Dugan and Chenoweth
homes, increasing curfews, assassinating militant leaders, and constructing a highly controversial concrete and barbed-wire barrier that
weaves between Israeli and Palestinian occupied land. Although Israel’s military occupation
of the West Bank ended in 2005, Hamas won
the 2006 elections to become the legitimate
government of the PA. Hamas has refused to
negotiate with Israel or recognize Israel’s right
to exist, and indeed has continued to support the
use of violence against Israelis. At the same
time, Israeli elected leaders have also become
increasingly hawkish, adopting provocative
policies such as further settlement expansion. In
2009, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a
war in the Gaza Strip that resulted in thousands
of deaths. With no resolution in sight, Israel
continues to face attacks from within the Palestinian Territories, and the Israeli government
continues to rely overwhelmingly on force to
attempt to deter yet more violence.
Israel continues to experience violent attacks
by Hamas, PIJ, and Fatah-affiliated organizations—all of whom are sensitive to and dependent on sympathy and support from the Palestinian
population, the vast majority of whom would not
engage in terrorist activities as their default
choice (Bloom 2004; Hafez 2006). As mentioned earlier, most terrorist groups rely on willing recruits to survive (Crenshaw 2001).
Moreover, these groups are much more likely to
endure when the surrounding population is either
complicit in their activities, sympathetic toward
them, or convinced that informing Israelis will
result in swift retaliation from the terrorist groups
themselves (Kalyvas 2006; Kocher and Kalyvas
2007; Lyall and Wilson 2009). As many analysts
have noted, the civilian population is the central
fulcrum of any protracted civil conflict (Kalyvas
2006; Lyall and Wilson 2009), and the Israeli–
Palestinian conflict is no exception.
Applying Rational
Choice to the IsraelI–
Palestinian Conflict
Within the context of Israel, raising the costs of
terror is akin to initiating repressive actions
against the Palestinians; and raising the benefits
605
of abstaining from terrorism is akin to initiating
conciliatory actions by the Israeli government
toward Palestinians. Israeli actions may target
known Palestinian terrorists (discriminate) or
Palestinian civilians in general (indiscriminate).
Hypotheses
As a guide to the hypotheses we present a
final equation that combines Equations 2 and
3 into one inequality. When
E(uterror) < E(unonterror),
(4)
we expect less terrorism. We now present three
hypotheses that follow directly this inequality
condition, and two hypotheses that relate to
specific components of the expected utility of
terror and nonterror.
Hypothesis 1: Any Israeli action leads to fewer
terrorist attacks by Palestinians.
We present this hypothesis because
whether Israel lowers the expected utility of
terrorism through repressive actions or raises
the expected utility of nonterrorism through
conciliatory actions, the result should produce a higher utility for nonterrorism, thus
leading a rational actor away from terrorist
behavior. The next two hypotheses are specific to each type of expected utility.
Hypothesis 2: Conciliatory actions lead to fewer terrorist attacks by Palestinians.
Hypothesis 3: Repressive actions lead to fewer
terrorist attacks by Palestinians.
These hypotheses allow effects of the specific type of action to behave independently
from effects of the other type. Because both
punishment and reward are expected to tilt
inequalities in favor of nonterrorism, we predict that both types of actions will lead to
fewer attacks.
The two secondary hypotheses are generated
from other components of rational choice.
Hypothesis 4: Indiscriminate repressive actions
lead to more terrorist attacks.
606
Here, we expect repressive actions that
affect the Palestinian people in general will
cause a backlash of violence. Prior literature
has found evidence of backlash (Benmelech
et al. 2010), and an important source of backlash is the Israeli government’s compromised
legitimacy. Without legitimacy, Palestinians
have little reason to trust that the Israeli government will behave fairly in times of peace
(Braithwaite 2005).6
This reaction by the larger constituency
can favor Israel if it provides peaceful alternatives to violence. This leads to the next
secondary hypothesis:
Hypothesis 5: Indiscriminate conciliatory actions lead to a larger decrease in terrorist
violence than do other actions.
Quite simply, if Israel builds legitimacy
and trust through conciliatory actions, the
Palestinian people will be more reluctant to
sabotage the possibility of peace by supporting terrorism. Without their support, terrorists
will be unable to maintain an ongoing campaign of violence.
Research Strategy
The study of counterterrorism has long been
constrained by a lack of high-quality data
with which to evaluate these approaches in a
robust way (Chenoweth and Dugan 2011). To
test our hypotheses, we provide several
empirical innovations. First, we focus on relational data between state and Palestinian
actors in Israel. Second, we include a wide
range of state actions under the category of
“counterterrorism.” Many studies focus
exclusively on repression or concessions, but
we collected data on thousands of types of
state actions—from raids and arrests to allowing telephone lines to be built in refugee
camps—so that we can explore the relative
effects of different types of interactions. This
allows us to move away from misleading
characterizations of conflict as a series of
dichotomous choices and to consider a wider
range of conflict actions (Chenoweth and
American Sociological Review 77(4)
Dugan 2011). Third, we use newly collected
event data on the specific actions taken by the
state of Israel directed toward substate actors
relevant to the Israeli conflicts with Palestinian
populations. This allows us to aggregate the
data to any temporal unit. For this research,
we chose to aggregate to the month because
the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is highly
dynamic, and information is outdated after a
few months. Finally, we adopted a method
that allowed us to estimate effects of various
tactics on terrorist attacks while accounting
for reciprocal effects that terrorist attacks may
have on counterterrorism actions.
Data
Data for these analyses come from two
sources. The dependent variable, Palestinian
terrorist attacks, comes from the Global
Terrorism Database (GTD), which was collected by scholars at the Center for the Study
of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism
(START) (LaFree and Dugan 2007). The
independent variables, Israeli state actions,
come from a new database collected by the
authors called Government Actions in a
Terrorist Environment-Israel (GATE-Israel)
(Chenoweth and Dugan 2011). The current
analysis is constrained to the years covered
by this dataset, June 1987 through December
2004. This collection is part of a larger effort
to document tactics used by states to reduce
terrorist threats (Chenoweth and Dugan
2011).7
Palestinian terrorist attacks. The GTD
is an event-based database that documents all
terrorist attacks across the globe from 1970
through 2010.8 The collection was originally
compiled by the Pinkerton Global Intelligence
Services (PGIS) from 1970 through 1997, and
then cleaned and updated by START staff and
contractors (Dugan 2012; LaFree and Dugan
2007). Regardless of the collecting agent, all
cases came from open sources available
through media and other reporting agencies.
The reliance on open sources produces
some strengths and some weaknesses (see
Dugan and Chenoweth
LaFree and Dugan 2007). The most relevant
concern for this research is that open sources
are biased toward the most noteworthy events
and are likely to underrepresent attacks on
more remote parts of the globe. However,
because the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has
been central to the international arena, we are
not very concerned about missing events. Furthermore, because it is inevitable that some
events might have missed public scrutiny, we
have no reason to believe this issue would be
systematic.
Two nuances in GTD data are relevant to
the current analysis. First, all events from the
year 1993 are missing. Boxes that held the
original data for that year were lost while still
under the control of PGIS. All analyses thus
exclude the months of that year. We note that
1993 spans the tactical regimes of the First
Intifada and the Oslo Lull. Second, although
the original data were collected prospectively
by PGIS, data since 1998 were collected retrospectively, inevitably undercounting attacks
that were documented only in sources that are
no longer available. To adjust for this, all
models include an indicator variable that distinguishes the retrospective period from the
prospective period (GTD2 = 1 if year > 1997
and 0 otherwise).9 We expect the coefficient
for this estimate to be negative, absorbing
the undercounting for the retrospective data
collection.
Dependent variables for all analyses come
from the GTD and are counts of Palestinian
terrorist attacks for each month. We used only
GTD cases that involved at least one Israeli
target in Israel or the Palestinian territories.
Furthermore, because the GTD provides
some information about the perpetrator in
nearly 70 percent of these attacks, and because
the majority of attacks are Palestinian related,
we included in the current analysis all attacks
by unknown perpetrators (30.2 percent) and
excluded attacks by non-Palestinians (e.g.,
Lebanese or Israeli terrorists). Although it is
possible that some of the unknown attacks
were by non-Palestinians, we doubt that any
error is systematic. After filtering attacks by
these criteria, we found 1,208 terrorist attacks
607
by Palestinians against Israelis from June
1987 through December 2004, the months
used in the current analysis.
Israeli state actions. The GATE-Israel
Database includes all Israeli actions toward
substate actors from June 1987 through
December 2004. Our focus is on actions
directed toward Palestinian terrorists or civilians. We collected data using Textual Analysis
by Augmented Replacement Instructions
(TABARI), which searches news articles and
identifies observations that match the criteria
of an extensive set of dictionaries designed to
capture international and domestic activity
(Schrodt 2001, 2006).10 TABARI is an automated text-coding program that codes news
articles based on noun and verb pattern recognition. This method is surprisingly accurate
and considerably more efficient than human
coding of entire stories (Schrodt 2001,
2006).11 For other recent applications of
TABARI, see Clauset and colleagues (2010);
Shellman (2008); and Shellman, Hatfield, and
Mills (2010).
In our study, we used TABARI to code
243,448 Reuters articles downloaded from
Factiva using the word “Israel*” as the search
criterion for the period January 1, 1987 to
December 31, 2004. Reuters’ archives begin
in June 1987, delineating the beginning point
of this research. We determined the end date
at the time we wrote the original grant proposal. We chose Reuters over other wire services because of its consistent editorial
control and its tendency to use a simpler
sentence structure and vocabulary than alternative news sources such as the Washington
Post and the New York Times (Schrodt, Davis,
and Weddle 1994; Schrodt and Gerner 1994).
After TABARI identified relevant news
articles, we filtered the output to keep only
actions that the Israeli government implemented toward substate targets. We chose not
to select on the types of actions (or verbs) to
make sure that all unexpected actions would
be captured. This method ensures that we
captured a wide range of actions that may not
immediately seem like counterterrorism but
608
American Sociological Review 77(4)
Table 1. Seven-Point Guide for the Conciliatory–Repression Scale
1 = Accommodation/Full Concessions
Appeasing or surrendering to adversary
Making full concessions to opponent’s demands
Action required
2 = Conciliatory Action
Making material concessions
Taking action that signals intention to cooperate or negotiate with opponent
3 = Conciliatory Statement or Intentions
Expressing intention to cooperate or showing support
Verbal expression short of physical action
4 = Neutral or Ambiguous
No clear moves toward or away from resolution of conflict
Includes all attempts to ask for help from a third party to resolve the conflict
Requires more context to determine whether it is conciliatory or repressive
Includes all infighting over Palestinians within the Israeli government
5 = Verbal Conflict
Express intent to engage in conflict or threaten
Decline to cease ongoing conflict; maintain the status quo during conflict
Short of physical action
6 = Physical Conflict
Physical or violent action aimed at coercing opponent
No apparent intention to kill
7 = Extremely Deadly Repression
Physical action exhibiting intent to kill
Torture or severe violence (such as severe beatings), which could easily kill someone
are relevant to the overall conflict, such as
allowing developers to build better water
wells in the Palestinian territories.
Furthermore, we autocoded each action
according to several additional criteria. Relevant to this study, we established a Conciliatory–Repression scale for each action,
illustrated in Table 1. We based all codes on the
Palestinian perspective. The scale features distinctions in the intensity of the action as well as
its relative placement of the action on a conciliation–repression spectrum, similar to the
Goldstein (1992) scale. Table 2 lists specific
actions found in our data that commonly fell
into each category. We also autocoded each
observation for whether the action’s target was
discriminate or indiscriminate. Discriminate
actions attempt to single out guilty or suspected parties from uninvolved parties. Indiscriminate actions directly affect uninvolved
people (i.e., individuals who are not suspected
of involvement in terrorist activity).
Following the autocoding stage, research
assistants hand-checked each observation to
ensure that TABARI coded each story correctly
and to mark for removal any irrelevant cases.
During this cleaning process, we also attributed
each government action to politicians, the military, the judiciary, or the police. This process
revealed a relatively high degree of error (about
30 percent). Research assistants corrected these
errors, and both authors checked their coding to
ensure intercoder reliability. The resulting file
contains the lead sentence to the article, the
actor, action, target, the new codes mentioned
earlier for 6,070 Israeli government actions, and
other variables not relevant to the current study.
This dataset gives an action-by-action view of
Israeli attempts to resolve conflicts with various
non-state actors, including Palestinian, Israeli,
Dugan and Chenoweth
609
Table 2. Examples of Common Actions for Each Scale Item
Accommodation/Full Concessions
Withdrew from town
Signed peace accord
Handed town to Palestinians
Conciliatory Action
Met to discuss
Released
Lifted curfew
Pulled out
Investigated abuse
Conciliatory Statement or Intensions
Expressed optimism
Agreed to hold talks
Praised Palestinians
Expressed desire to cooperate
Admitted mistake
Neutral or Ambiguous
Infighting over
Failed to reach agreement
Hosted a visit
Appealed for third-party assistance
Investigated
and Lebanese militants. Over 90 percent of
actions were directed toward Palestinians or
Palestinian terrorists (Chenoweth and Dugan
2011). For the current analysis, we retained
only actions relevant to the Israeli–Palestinian
conflict.
Analysis
We combined the GTD and GATE-Israel data
into four monthly time-series datasets. The
first includes most of the 211 months from
June 1987 through December 2004. We omitted all months from 1993 (211 – 12 = 199)
because the GTD data are missing; we
dropped the first four months of the set due to
the lagged dependent variable, which we
describe below (199 – 4 = 195). Furthermore,
because 1993 is missing, we also dropped the
first four months of 1994 from the models
due to the lagged dependent variable (195 – 4
= 191). The second dataset includes only the
Verbal Conflict
Made pessimistic comment
Dismissed
Blamed for attack
Denied Responsibility
Threatened military force
Physical Conflict
Demolished
Barred
Sealed off
Imposed curfew
Arrested
Extreme Deadly Repression
Shot dead
Fired missiles
Clashed with
Raided
Helicopter attack
months during the First Intifada (December
1987 through August 1993), noting that the
eight months in 1993 are missing. The third
dataset includes only the months during the
Oslo Lull (September 1993 through August
2000), with the four months of 1993 and the
first four months of 1994 missing. The final
dataset includes only the months during the
Second Intifada (September 2000 through
December 2004). We conducted all analyses
using the three smaller datasets to assess the
robustness of the findings to the different
tactical regimes.
We used a two-step methodological
approach—one parametric and the other nonparametric—to assess the robustness of the
findings and to provide a visual representation of the relationship between government
actions and terrorist attacks. First, we parametrically tested these relationships by modeling them using a negative binomial
regression (NBR). Because the relationships
610
can be nonlinear (i.e., the effect of government actions on terrorism depends on the
number of actions), we tested for both linear
and nonlinear relations using squared terms.
We used NBR because the dependent variable
is a count of the number of attacks in the current month, which is a relatively rare event.
Furthermore, because there is a chance that
the variance is over-dispersed, we chose the
more flexible negative binomial over the
more restrictive Poisson model (Greene
2008).
The nonparametric approach, Generalized
Additive Models (GAM), allows us to visually examine relationships between government actions and the number of terrorist
attacks during the next month, while controlling for all the same variables that are in the
NBR. Because the dependent variable is a
count, we used a log link function for a Poisson distribution. This methodology uses a
smoothing function to isolate the relationship
between actions and attacks without imposing
assumptions about linearity (Hastie and Tibshirani 1990). The method produces graphs
that show partial predictions of our independent variables with confidence intervals, allowing us to visually examine the nature of the
relationships for consistency with our hypotheses (Xiang 2001). Using both methods to
examine these relationships allowed us, first,
to test the robustness of the findings with and
without parametric assumptions and, second,
to visually examine the nature of the relationship in the absence of statistical significance.
The general format of all NBR and GAM
models follows the form shown in Equation 5,
Attackst = f(Actionst–1, Regimes, GTD2,
(5)
Attackst–1, Attackst–2, Attackst–3, Attackst–4),
where the vector Regimes is included only in the
model for all months and includes an indicator
variable for each Intifada (First and Second).
These are important controls because levels of
terrorist activity and the Israeli decision regime
differed substantially depending on the tactical
regime (Brym and Anderson 2011).12 GTD2
is an indicator variable depicting the years of
American Sociological Review 77(4)
Table 3. Primary Independent Variables
Measuring Israeli Government Actions
Model 1.
All Actions (Hypothesis 1)
Model 2.
Conciliatory and Repressive Actions
(Hypotheses 2 and 3)
Model 3.
Conciliatory-Discriminate, Conciliatory-Indiscriminate, RepressiveDiscriminate, and RepressiveIndiscriminate (Hypotheses 4
and 5)
retrospective data collection (1998 to 2004),
Attacks represents the number of Palestinian
attacks directed toward Israelis for the current
month (t) and the four previous months (t – 1
through t – 4).13 By including measures of
lagged attacks in the models, we are better able
to isolate the effect of actions in the previous
months on attacks in the current month. Without
controlling for lagged attacks, the estimated
relationship between actions and attacks would
likely be distorted because it would include any
effects that earlier attacks had on both government actions and current attacks.
For each dataset, we ran three models,
measuring government actions according to
the several dimensions listed in Table 3. Most
apparent is that models go from least granular
(All Actions) to most granular, where repressive and conciliatory actions are partitioned
by whether they were discriminate or indiscriminate. We ran each set of independent
variables using NBR and GAM for all four
datasets, totaling 12 models.
Results
Because this research presents a new dataset,
we begin our analysis by presenting descriptive statistics for the primary dependent and
independent variables for all months specified to the tactical regime (see Table 4). For
each regime, we present the means, standard
deviations, and proportion of months that
have a value of zero. We included only the
months that are in the analyses, so we lagged
all actions by one month, excluded the first
Dugan and Chenoweth
611
Table 4. Means, Standard Deviation, and Proportion of Zeros
All Months (n = 191)
First Intifada (n = 61)
Variable
Mean
SD
P(0)
Mean
SD
P(0)
Attacks
All Actions
Conciliatory
Repressive
Conciliatory-Discriminate
Conciliatory-Indiscriminate
Repressive-Discriminate
Repressive-Indiscriminate
5.84
27.90
7.55
17.95
1.47
6.04
4.13
13.82
5.84
16.33
5.91
12.17
1.51
5.31
4.17
9.53
.13
.00
.07
.00
.32
.09
.08
.01
7.72
19.57
4.03
14.38
1.38
2.61
3.23
11.13
5.09
9.30
3.16
7.25
1.29
2.49
2.65
5.58
.07
.00
.16
.00
.31
.21
.10
.00
Attacks
All Actions
Conciliatory
Repressive
Conciliatory-Discriminate
Conciliatory-Indiscriminate
Repressive-Discriminate
Repressive-Indiscriminate
Oslo Lull (n = 76)
3.07
25.42
10.16
12.92
1.63
8.46
3.01
9.91
3.92
11.44
6.57
7.62
1.73
5.79
2.39
6.13
Second Intifada (n = 52)
.26
.00
.03
.00
.33
.03
.12
.01
7.79
42.00
8.12
29.89
1.38
6.73
6.85
23.04
7.98
19.76
5.28
14.21
1.42
4.88
6.11
11.17
.00
.00
.00
.00
.31
.02
.00
.00
Note: We generated all statistics from the data used to estimate the models. This means the first four
months of each series (and in 1994) were excluded due to the lagged dependent variable, and all
months from 1993 were excluded.
four months of each series (and in 1994), and
omitted all 1993 months. Turning first to the
dependent variable, we see that over the
entire period, there were, on average, almost
six attacks per month with only 13 percent of
months free of terrorist attacks. When we turn
to the three tactical regimes, we see, as
expected, that terror attacks were higher in
the First and Second Intifada compared to the
Oslo Lull (7.72 and 7.79 versus 3.07, respectively). Similarly, more than a quarter of the
months during the Oslo Lull saw no terror
attacks, whereas every month during the
Second Intifada had at least one attack and
almost every month in the First Intifada had
an attack.
Turning to the statistics describing Israel’s
actions, we see that over the entire period,
Israel initiated an average of nearly 28 actions
a month toward Palestinians. By scanning the
averages for actions partitioned by type, we
see Israel’s actions were most often repressive
and indiscriminate; averaging nearly 14 indiscriminate acts each month. In fact, according
to the data, in all but one month there was at
least one repressive-indiscriminate action
(shown by P(0) = .01). The table also shows
there were more than twice as many repressive acts (scale items 5, 6, and 7) as conciliatory acts (scale items 1, 2, and 3) each month,
and both actions were more often indiscriminate than discriminate. Conciliatory-discriminate acts were rare, averaging 1.47 each
month. More revealing is that in 32 percent of
months, Israel offered no discriminate conciliatory actions.
Although these patterns generally hold over
all three tactical regimes, there are important
differences worth noting. First, Israel’s average
number of total actions increased over time. It
was smallest during the First Intifada (19.57); it
rose during the Oslo Lull (25.42); and it reached
a peak during the Second Intifada (42.00). Israel
most frequently relied on conciliatory actions
612
American Sociological Review 77(4)
Figure 1. Quarterly Repressive and Conciliatory Actions by Israel and Palestinian Terrorist
Attacks
during the Oslo Lull (10.16) and most frequently relied on repressive actions during the
Second Intifada (29.89). Finally, almost every
month saw a wide range of types of actions by
Israel—excluding conciliatory-discriminate, of
course.
Because we are interested in the temporal
relationship between government actions and
terrorist attacks, we now map the quarterly
counts of repressive and conciliatory actions
onto the quarterly count of Palestinian terrorist attacks directed toward Israelis over time.14
This comparison is especially important
because both measures come from different
sources that were collected independently of
one another. Because we expect both government actions and terrorist attacks to vary with
the intensity of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, we would also expect these measures to
track one another. Figure 1 presents a bar
chart of Israeli actions with a line depicting
Palestinian attacks mapped over it.15 Note
that actions are scaled by the left axis and
attacks are scaled by the right axis. Repres-
sive actions are marked with a light color and
conciliatory actions are shown with a solid
black bar. The three tactical regimes are separated by vertical dashed lines. Figure 1 shows
that both repressive and conciliatory actions
appear to track terrorist attacks rather closely
(r = .49 and r = .24, respectively). The frequency of terrorist attacks and the number of
conciliatory actions rose during the First Intifada, and repressive government actions show
no distinct pattern. Having said that, all three
series peaked around the time of the Oslo
Agreement and then declined until the beginning of the Second Intifada. During the Second Intifada, all three trends rose dramatically
and then declined at different rates.16
We now turn to results for the NBR and
GAM models that used data for all months
from June 1987 through December 2004.
Table 5 presents coefficients and standard
errors from the NBR models. Although we
tested all nonlinear relationships, this table
includes only squared terms if the tests concluded nonlinearity. Table 5 also includes
Dugan and Chenoweth
613
Table 5. Negative Binomial Coefficients and (SE), June 1987 through December 2004, n = 191
Model 1
Government Actions
All Actions
Model 2
.005
(.004)
Conciliatory
.048
(.031)
–.003*
(.001)
.009
(.006)
Conciliatory2
Repressive
Conciliatory-Discriminate
Conciliatory-Indiscriminate
(Conciliatory-Indiscriminate)2
Repressive-Discriminate
Repressive-Indiscriminate
Tactical Regime
First Intifada
Second Intifada
Controls
GTD2
First Lagged Attacks
Second Lagged Attacks
Third Lagged Attacks
Fourth Lagged Attacks
Model 3
.732**
(.156)
1.263**
(.264)
.626**
(.185)
1.120**
(.277)
–1.023**
(.255)
.023*
(.011)
–.001
(.010)
.035**
(.011)
.018
(.011)
–1.032**
(.252)
.025*
(.011)
.004
(.010)
.035**
(.011)
.020
(.011)
–.006
(.041)
.051
(.036)
–.003*
(.002)
.016
(.015)
.005
(.008)
.660**
(.191)
1.153**
(.278)
–1.028**
(.253)
.025*
(.011)
.002
(.010)
.034**
(.011)
.020
(.011)
*p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01 (two-tailed tests).
results for the tactical regimes and control
variables. These findings confirm what we
expected: attacks were highest during the
Second Intifada—as evidenced by the large
and significant coefficient estimates in all
three models corresponding to the Second
Intifada—and second highest during the First
Intifada (compared to the Oslo Lull). Further-
more, terror attacks during the retrospective
data collection period (GTD2) were lower
than when data were collected prospectively.
Finally, coefficients for the lagged attacks
show that the first and third lagged attacks
were most important.17
Turning now to the hypotheses, Model 1 in
Table 5 shows the parametric estimate of the
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American Sociological Review 77(4)
1.61374
–.360915
1
Lagged all actions
121
Figure 2. Partial Predictions of All Actions from the Past Month on Terrorist Attacks in the
Current Month
Note: Smoothing component of lagged actions has three degrees of freedom.
relationship between all government actions
and Palestinian terrorist attacks. Accordingly,
the value of the coefficient is positive but statistically null ( p = .26). Figure 2 presents partial
predictions (with 95 percent confidence bands)
of all government attacks for the past month on
terrorist attacks during the current month. We
include a horizontal line to mark zero (or no
relationship). Also, because the x-axis is the
number of actions in the previous month, any
nonlinear relationship suggests that the effect of
actions depends on the quantity of actions by the
Israeli government in the previous month. This
graph suggests that the number of Israeli actions
in the past month is unrelated to the number of
Palestinian terrorist attacks targeting Israelis.
The increase at the end of this graph is negligible because it is driven entirely by one month
that had 121 actions; all other months had fewer
than 90 actions. We conclude, therefore, that
Hypothesis 1 is unsupported.18
Turning now to findings related to our
second and third hypotheses, the NBR coefficient estimates presented in Table 5 under
Model 2 suggest that when Israel initiated
eight or fewer conciliatory actions there was
more terrorism the following month (the main
effect is positive yet less than marginal,
p = .12);19 however, when Israel initiated
more than eight conciliatory actions, terror
attacks appeared to drop (the quadratic term
is negative, p = .024). Conversely, the NBR
suggests a positive relationship between
repressive actions and terror attacks the following month, although the significance is
less than marginal ( p = .15).
Figures 3a and 3b present partial predictions of conciliatory and repressive actions
from the past month on terrorist attacks in the
current month, respectively. Both figures
mimic the NBR findings. Figure 3a shows
that with a low number of conciliatory actions,
attacks appeared to increase; however, as
Israel initiated more conciliatory actions, the
expected number of attacks in the next month
dropped—supporting the prediction of
Hypothesis 2. In fact, Israel initiated more
than eight conciliatory actions in 38 percent
of months, suggesting that the drop in Figure
3a is not driven by outliers. As we examine
the repressive actions in Figure 3b, a small
number of actions seem to have produced no
effect on attacks. However, as Israel initiated
more repressive actions, the expected number
of attacks rose. We interpret this finding with
caution because in most months (87 percent),
Dugan and Chenoweth
615
a. Conciliatory Actions
b. Repressive Actions
1.57031
.142908
–.171465
–1.04907
0
Lagged Conciliatory Acts
27
1
Lagged Repressive Acts
80
Figure 3. Partial Predictions of Conciliatory and Repressive Actions from the Past Month on
Terrorist Attacks in the Current Month
Note: Smoothing component of lagged actions has three degrees of freedom.
Israel initiated 30 or fewer repressive actions,
suggesting that the increase at the end of the
graph is driven by only 13 percent of the
months. At best, Hypothesis 3 is unsupported,
and at worst it is opposed, suggesting some
support for Hypothesis 4 (backlash).
We now turn to results for Model 3 in Table
5, which evaluates effects of discriminate and
indiscriminate actions. We expect a positive and
significant coefficient for repressive-indiscriminate actions (Hypothesis 4) and a negative and
significant coefficient for conciliatory-indiscriminate actions (Hypothesis 5). Results show
some support for Hypothesis 5, but no support
for Hypothesis 4. Like results for conciliatory
actions in general, conciliatory-indiscriminate
actions seem to affect terrorism only after
months in which Israel initiated relatively large
numbers (more than 8.5) of such actions.20 The
GAM partial predictors for all four variables
presented in Figure 4 conform to the findings
from Table 5. The drop below zero in Figure 4b
is driven by more than a quarter of the months,
suggesting it is sound.21 Figure 4c seems to suggest some backlash from repressive-discriminate acts; however, that increase appears to be
driven by relatively few months, as suggested
by the wide confidence bound.
To investigate whether relationships differ
across the three tactical regimes, we re-estimated Models 1, 2 and 3 for the First Intifada,
the Oslo Lull, and the Second Intifada months
and present the results in Tables 6a, 6b, and
6c, respectively. These tables include the
original findings from all months, for comparison. We included controls in the estimation, but we omit them here for parsimony.
Due to space constraints, partial predictions
from the GAM models are excluded, but they
are available in the online supplement.
Table 6a presents NBR coefficients for the
effect of all actions on Palestinian terror
attacks. We see that the relationship is null,
regardless of the period. Yet coefficients are
positive during the First and Second Intifada
and negative during the Oslo Lull, suggesting
that different dynamics were at play during
different tactical regimes. Regardless, it is
safe to conclude that these data do not support
Hypothesis 1, but a closer look at each of the
tactical regimes is in order.
Table 6b presents coefficient estimates for
Model 2, testing the relationship between
conciliatory and repressive actions separately
on terror attacks across each of the three
regimes. Recall that Hypotheses 2 and 3 predicted negative relationships between all
coefficients. Table 6b shows that only the
Second Intifada provides clear support for
Hypothesis 2. Here the relationship between
conciliatory actions and terror attacks is
unambiguously negative. Interestingly, this
finding is contrary to much conventional wisdom, in that the period when suicide missions
616
American Sociological Review 77(4)
a. Conciliatory-Discriminate
.376635
b. Conciliatory-Indiscriminate
.165583
–1.48244
–.691987
0
8
Lagged Conciliatory Discriminate
0
26
Lagged Conciliatory Indiscriminate
c. Repressive-Discriminate
d. Repressive-Indiscriminate
.6765
1.21061
–.212605
–.356292
0
32
Lagged Repressive Discriminate
0
48
Lagged Repressive Indiscriminate
Figure 4. Partial Predictions of the Past Month’s Actions—Conciliatory or Repressive and
Discriminate or Indiscriminate—on Terrorist Attacks in the Current Month
Note: Smoothing component of lagged actions has three degrees of freedom.
Table 6a. Negative Binomial Coefficients and (SE) for Government Actions in Model 1 for
Each Tactical Regime
All Actions
All Months
(n = 191)
First Intifada
(n = 61)
Oslo Lull
(n = 76)
Second Intifada
(n = 52)
.005
(.004)
.015
(.011)
–.020
(.012)
.007
(.005)
Note: Control variables were included in the estimation but excluded from this table.
*p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01 (two-tailed tests).
dominated the terrorist environment was also
the period when conciliatory tactics had the
most powerful effect on reducing Palestinian
terrorism.
In contrast, during the First Intifada and
Oslo Lull, small numbers of Israeli conciliatory actions led to increases in Palestinian
terror attacks, but the negative coefficient of
the squared term shows that larger numbers of
conciliatory actions reduced terrorist attacks.
The GAM partial predictions, found in the
online supplement, show this effect was more
dramatic during the Oslo Lull. In summary,
Hypothesis 2 is directly supported only during the Second Intifada and receives only
qualified support during the other two
regimes. Conciliatory actions seem to have
reduced terrorist attacks only when Israel
initiated larger numbers of conciliatory
actions during the previous month.
Hypothesis 3 also finds no support in
Table 6b. Repression did not decrease Palestinian terrorism during any of the regimes. In
fact, the positive and significant estimate during the Second Intifada suggests that during
that period, Israel experienced backlash when
Dugan and Chenoweth
617
Table 6b. Negative Binomial Coefficients and (SE) for Government Actions in Model 2 for
Each Tactical Regime
Conciliatory
Conciliatory2
Repressive
All Months
(n = 191)
First Intifada
(n = 61)
Oslo Lull
(n = 76)
Second Intifada
(n = 52)
.048
(.031)
–.003*
(.001)
.009
(.006)
.280**
(.100)
–.019*
(.008)
–.002
(.014)
.173**
(.064)
–.007**
(.002)
–.011
(.015)
–.054*
(.023)
.021**
(.008)
Note: Control variables were included in the estimation but excluded from this table.
*p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01 (two-tailed tests).
Table 6c. Negative Binomial Coefficients and (SE) for Government Actions in Model 3 for
Each Tactical Regime
Conciliatory-Discriminate
All Months
(n = 191)
First Intifada
(n = 61)
Oslo Lull
(n = 76)
Second Intifada (n = 52)
–.006
(.041)
.476*
(.217)
–.107*
(.051)
–.063
(.045)
–.041
(.077)
.051
(.036)
–.003*
(.002)
.030
(.042)
.172**
(.059)
–.009**
(.002)
–.055*
(.024)
.016
(.015)
.033
(.037)
.490**
(.154)
–.065**
(.017)
.021
(.017)
.005
(.008)
–.011
(.019)
.009
(.013)
.020*
(.010)
(Conciliatory-Discriminate)2
Conciliatory-Indiscriminate
(Conciliatory-Indiscriminate)2
Repressive-Discriminate
(Repressive-Discriminate)2
Repressive-Indiscriminate
Note: Control variables were included in the estimation but excluded from this table.
*p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01 (two-tailed tests).
they initiated repression, partially supporting
Hypothesis 4.
To look for further evidence for Hypotheses 4 and 5, we turn to Table 6c, which lists
estimates for conciliatory and repressive
actions partitioned by whether they were discriminate or indiscriminate. Again, these
hypotheses are directly supported only in findings from the Second Intifada. During that
regime, conciliatory-indiscriminate actions
were associated with fewer terror attacks, and
repressive-indiscriminate actions were associated with more. Findings related to conciliatory acts during the First Intifada and the Oslo
Lull provide insight into results from Table 6b.
During the First Intifada, conciliatory-discriminate actions, where Israel gave concessions to terrorists rather than to the Palestinian
population, seem to have led to more terror.
Conciliatory-indiscriminate actions did not.
This means that during that regime, there was
often more terror following the months when
Israel offered concessions to terrorists. However, during the Oslo Lull regime, terror was
more frequent after Israel offered a few concessions to Palestinians in general, but the
effect reversed as the number of conciliatory
actions accumulated (see GAM results in the
618
online supplement for a graphical depiction of
this relationship). During that regime, we also
find evidence that attacks were more frequent
after months when Israel targeted repressive
actions toward terrorists.
These differences in findings across regimes
demonstrate some support for the notion that
effects of counterterrorism tactics may shift during different time periods, but not in the directions commonly expected. The Second Intifada,
often thought to be among the most extreme
periods of Palestinian violence, is the period
when conciliatory actions had the most direct
effect on reducing terrorist attacks. These findings suggest that instead of demonstrating irrational behaviors, groups like Hamas and PIJ
may be far more sensitive to opinions and
demands of the Palestinian constituency than is
often suggested—perhaps even more so than
secular Palestinian groups. This implication
echoes previous findings that emphasize the
hypersensitivity of religious organizations to
public opinion (Iannaccone and Berman 2006).
Moreover, our findings directly contest the
claim that repression reduces terrorist attacks
by raising the cost of terrorist activity—a
claim that receives no support in any of the
tactical regimes examined. Instead, we find
that during the First Intifada and the Oslo
Lull, reductions in terrorist attacks followed
months with relatively high numbers of conciliatory actions, although small numbers of
conciliatory actions were associated with a
modest increase in terrorist activity. Perhaps
during these periods, adopting only a handful
of conciliatory actions made Palestinians
question Israel’s sincerity, thereby making the
Palestinian public less responsive to potential
rewards of nonterror and emboldening terrorist groups to push for more conciliation.
Importantly, however, in months where conciliatory actions were more forthcoming and
frequent, the credible benefits of nonterrorism were clearer. During the Second Intifada,
effects of conciliatory actions on reducing
terrorism were more immediate, indicating,
perhaps, that during this particularly violent
period, rewards for nonterrorism were
accepted more swiftly.
American Sociological Review 77(4)
Conclusions
In this study, we found that governments can
often influence the number of terrorist attacks
perpetrated against their people. Our argument expands beyond traditional strategies of
deterrence by incorporating actions that raise
the expected utility of refraining from terrorist behavior. This strategy paid off, as we
found that this often-overlooked dimension
seemed to significantly reduce terrorist
attacks. Had we only measured effects of traditional deterrence, the analysis would have
appeared inconclusive at best, and the policy
implications would have been misleading: we
conclude that repressive actions by the Israeli
government are unlikely to deter Palestinian
terrorism and may lead to a backlash of terrorist violence. This backlash effect is especially prominent if repression is directed
toward Palestinians in general.
Considering that the utility of terrorist violence is much greater than the self-interest that
typically motivates common criminals, this
makes sense. Without additional conciliation,
the only value offered to terrorists and their
constituencies for disengaging from terrorism is
an absence of punishment—which is really just
the status quo. Had the status quo been sufficient to avert terrorism, no terrorism would
occur in the first place. Furthermore, terrorist
organizations are invested in ensuring that the
status quo remains unsatisfying to their constituencies (Malka 2007; Yaalon 2007). Thus, one
important contribution is demonstrating the
value of offering concessions to Palestinian
people that reward alternatives to violence.
Constituent populations need evidence that
opposes terrorist propaganda rather than evidence that reinforces it.
Results also suggest that conciliatory
actions must be sustained if they are to effectively reduce terrorist violence. A few conciliatory efforts are unlikely to show an effect;
and in fact, they could lead to increased violence, as we saw in the First Intifada and the
Oslo Lull. However, an ongoing and consistent campaign of conciliation can lead to a
drop in terrorism as early as the following
Dugan and Chenoweth
month. This is good news, but Israeli repression can easily dismantle such progress, as
the backlash can be swift—especially if the
repression affects innocent Palestinians.
Moreover, according to the results, the
scope of concessions matters. Indiscriminate
conciliatory actions—such as making gestures toward peace talks, announcing plans to
withdraw troops, and criticizing abuses
against Palestinians—may decrease subsequent terror attacks because they reward
nonterrorist behavior. On the other hand,
actions that single out particular terrorist
actors for conciliation (e.g., releasing prisoners) benefit terrorism rather than nonterrorism—and therefore, unsurprisingly, may not
reduce terrorism. Indeed, whereas indiscriminate conciliatory actions reduced terrorism
during two of the three periods (as conciliatory actions accumulated and appeared more
credible), discriminate conciliatory actions
reduced terrorism only during the First Intifada. This indicates that discriminate conciliatory actions typically yield fewer benefits in
counterterrorism than do more indiscriminate
actions that reward nonterrorist behavior
among the constituent population.
Combined, the full set of findings reinforces Braithwaite’s (2005) speculation that
terrorist organizations may even benefit from
repressive actions, and that they likely strategically elicit repressive responses that will
sabotage any goodwill that might be developing between Israel and the Palestinians. If the
Palestinian people begin to trust that Israel is
sincere about a mutually sustainable resolution to the conflict, terrorist organizations will
lose their base of support. Paradoxically, Palestinian terrorists probably rely on Israel’s
hawkish policies to preserve their longevity.
This article is the first to empirically demonstrate the important role that conciliatory
actions can play in reducing terrorist violence.
The importance of providing lawful alternatives to violence is mirrored in the criminological literature. Indeed, many programs that
research shows positively affect the lives
of those most at risk require consistent and
long-term exposure to healthier alternatives
619
(Olds et al. 1986; Rich and Jacoby 1999;
Schweinhart 2005). Similarly, nurturing the
relationship between a government and a terrorist organization’s constituency also requires
consistency.
Having said this, we do not recommend
that governments adopt purely conciliatory
policies. It is likely still important to punish
individuals who break the law, even if it produces no obvious deterrence benefits. In fact,
our analysis cannot speak to what would happen if Israel practiced only conciliatory
behavior, because every month had at least
one repressive action by Israel. Instead, our
hope is that this research provides alternatives
to solely focusing policy efforts on reducing
the expected utility of bad behavior by also
considering the value of raising the expected
utility of good behavior.
Authors’ Note
Equal authorship is implied.
Funding
This material is based on work supported by the Science
and Technology directorate of the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security under Grant Award Number 2008-ST061-ST0004, made to the National Consortium for the
Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START,
http://www.start.umd.edu). The views and conclusions
contained in this document are those of the authors and
should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the
official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security or START.
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge Phil Schrodt, Baris Kesgin, and
Matthias Heilke for helping us learn and use TABARI; and
Richard Berk for his methodological advice. We also thank
our research assistants, Jeremy Berkowitz, Miranda Berry,
Michael Distler, Robert Gambo, Max Livingston, Elizabeth
McClellan, Nicholas Miller, Valentina Postolache, Nicholas
Quah, Joanna Seirup, Max Slater, Elsie Smith, Rachel
Tecott, Elizabeth Weisman, Gregory Wong, and Nicholas
Yulinsky, who assisted with data collection, coding, and literature review.
Notes
1.This notation was partially borrowed from Piliavin
and colleagues (1986).
620
2.An important piece of scholarship by Sharvit and colleagues (2012) estimates effects of Israel’s coercive
and conciliatory policies on Palestinian terrorist violence from 2000 through 2006.
3.Like backlash, it is possible that conciliatory acts
could lead to increased terrorism if they lead terrorists
to perceive the state as weak, thereby emboldening
terrorists to use still more violence (Iyengar and
Monten 2008). Some scholars also argue that conciliatory tactics may create incentives for extremist
elements to sabotage efforts toward peace, depending
on the perceived strength of the negotiating partner
(Kydd and Walter 2002).
4.Some useful sources on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict include Bloom (2004), Gelvin (2005), Hafez
(2006), Jamal (2005), Pearlman (2008/2009), and
Tessler (1995).
5.Although some scholars argue that the Second Intifada persisted until 2007 (Brym and Andersen 2011),
we limit our study to 2004 because of data
availability.
6.According to some arguments, conciliation may
make the opposing government look weaker, therefore emboldening terrorists (Iyengar and Monten
2008; Kydd and Walter 2002).
7.Access to the data, statistical commands, and supplemental analysis is available in an online supplement
(http://asr.sage pub.com/supplemental).
8.These analyses used GTD data that were downloaded
on August 25, 2010. Because the GTD is continuously being updated, newer versions of data could
produce slightly different results. Having said that,
we know of no systematic changes to Israeli or Palestinian related terrorist attacks for the years in the
current analysis.
9.Before the earlier (1970 to 1997) GTD data were synthesized with the later data, the GTD data since 1997
were called GTD2. Since both collections have now
been synthesized, the data are called GTD as a whole
(Dugan 2012).
10.In our case, we used the CAMEO coding scheme.
11.Schrodt (2006) estimates that TABARI codes 33 million times faster than the average human coder.
12.Note that the reference category is Oslo Lull and the
five months prior to the First Intifada. Furthermore,
because we lagged the dependent variable by four
months, only one month prior to the First Intifada is
included in the estimation. That one month would
make an inadequate reference period, and there are no
compelling theoretical reasons to distinguish it from
the Oslo Lull.
13.We use the population in thousands for Israel in a
given year as the exposure measure for both the GAM
and negative binomial models.
14.A graphical representation of monthly counts is too
cluttered for the reader to easily interpret.
15.Terrorist attacks are missing in the months during
1993, the period for which the GTD is missing data.
American Sociological Review 77(4)
16.We have considered the possibility that the increase in
Israeli actions over time might be driven by an
increase in reporting rather than an increase in actual
events. Although we cannot entirely resolve this
problem here, our strategy was to select the most
impartial and extensive coverage available (Reuters)
and to carefully analyze each observation for intercoder reliability. Furthermore, we examined the
actions very closely to make sure that each is distinct
from the others, ensuring that each action is counted
only once in the GATE Database.
17.Adding additional lags provided no additional benefit; all statistical tests were null.
18.Granger tests confirm the findings in the tables. When
government actions are statistically significant,
Granger tests favor the more flexible model. When
government actions are statistically null, Granger
tests favor the model that excludes government
actions.
19.We estimated eight as the maximum number of
attacks using this equation: –.048/(2 × –.003).
20.This finding is unsurprising because the relatively
few discriminate-conciliatory acts (e.g., release of
terrorist prisoners) suggest that results for Model 2
were driven by indiscriminate acts.
21.Twenty-eight percent of months had more than eight
conciliatory-indiscriminate actions. We chose eight
actions because the maximum number of attacks followed 8.5 conciliatory-indiscriminate actions [–.51/
(2 × = .003)].
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Laura Dugan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the
University of Maryland. She is a lead investigator at the
National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the
Response to Terrorism (START). Her research examines
the consequences of violence and the efficacy of violence
prevention/intervention policy and practice. She also
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designs methodological strategies to overcome data limitations inherent in the social sciences. She has published
scholarly articles in Criminology, Journal of Quantitative
Criminology, Crime and Justice, Law and Society, Terrorism and Political Violence, and others.
Erica Chenoweth is an Assistant Professor at the Josef
Korbel School of International Studies at the University
of Denver, where she directs the Program on Terrorism
and Insurgency Research. She is a lead investigator at
American Sociological Review 77(4)
START and an Associate Senior Researcher at the
Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO). A specialist in
political violence and its alternatives, she is the coauthor of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic
Logic of Nonviolent Conflict and co-editor of Rethinking Violence: States and Non-State Actors in Conflict.
She has published scholarly articles in the Journal of
Politics, International Security, Political Research
Quarterly, and the Review of Policy Research, among
other venues.